“A Negro champion?” Willy said. “It won’t happen.”
“What do you mean? It already happened,” Johann said. “Remember Jack Johnson?”
“A fluke,” Willy countered. “Negroes don’t have the brainpower to be champions.”
“I’m telling you, this kid Louis has the brainpower and punching power to beat anyone. I’d rather Max fight Braddock any day.”
“I watched a film of a Louis fight,” Willy said. “He was all brawn. No strategy. I’m telling you, Negroes are just like animals. Put him in the ring with a thinking fighter like Max, and he wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“What about Henry Johnson?” Worjyk said. “He’s a Negro, and he’s all about technique. Everyone says he’s got the best shot at taking Barney Ross’s crown.”
My ears perked up at the mention of my hero.
“Ross is a pushover,” Willy said.
“After what he did to McClarnin?” Johann said.
“McClarnin’s a pushover too.”
“You think everyone’s a pushover.”
“What happened in the Ross-McClarnin fight?” I said, not able to hold myself back. Worjyk frowned at me for interrupting.
“Ross kicked his ass,” Worjyk said, relighting the stub of his cigar.
“They’re both pushovers,” Willy said.
“Pound for pound Ross is probably the best fighter in the world,” Johann said.
“My mother could compete in his weight class,” Willy countered.
“She’s too heavy,” Worjyk replied. “She’s at least a middle-weight.”
“Hey, watch what you say about my mother.”
“You brought her up.”
“Well, it’s none of your goddamn business,” Willy said.
“And she isn’t more than a welterweight anyway,” Johann added.
“I said shut up about my mother,” Willy snapped.
I walked away satisfied and relieved. Ross had defeated McClarnin and was still champion. If a rabbi’s son held a world boxing title, how bad could things really get for the Jews?
Stern vs. Strasser
ON THE EVE OF MY FIRST FIGHT, I HAD TO MAKE A LATE delivery for my father and didn’t return to our building until after dark. As I made my way up our darkened staircase, a figure emerged from the shadows of the hallway and grabbed my arm. I instinctively jerked back and cocked my fists.
“What the—”
“Shhhhh . . . ,” Greta whispered into my ear as she pulled me into a dark corner on the landing of the third floor. Since our first kiss in the basement we had been strict about not talking to or approaching each other in our own building. Standing in the shadows of our hallway with her set my heart racing.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I wanted to wish you luck tomorrow.” She kissed me quickly.
“I thought you didn’t believe in boxing.”
“I don’t, but if you’re going to do it, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I won’t.”
“Here, take this.”
She pressed something into my palm. I felt it in the darkness and realized it was the four-leaf clover charm that she usually wore around her neck.
“Slip it into your sock. It’ll bring you luck.”
“Danke.”
“And don’t let him hit your lips.”
“Greta?” a voice called from inside.
She playfully touched my lips with her index finger and gave me another deep kiss. Then she broke away and slipped back into her apartment.
The next morning, as I got dressed, I slipped the charm into the top of my sock. Feeling it pressing against the side of my ankle gave me a strange feeling of confidence and purpose, like she would be standing beside me in some way.
Max traveled frequently, mostly to America, the center of the boxing universe. “Everyone wants to fight in the U.S.,” he explained. “Over there I can earn ten times what I make for a fight staged in Europe.” As a result, he was away in New York during the week of my first real fight.
“Don’t worry,” he’d said on the afternoon of our final lesson before his departure. “Remember the basics, and you’ll be fine. So just concentrate on your balance and breathing, and then attack.”
Ever since I had first met Max and he had praised my reach, I had dreamed of one day becoming German Youth Champion. This would be the first official step toward that goal. Neblig offered to serve as my cornerman. I was grateful to have someone in my corner, but I felt self-conscious about the possibility that the other kids might make fun of him because of his stutter. The last thing I wanted was to become more of a target because of my cornerman. But I needed someone, and I didn’t want to hurt Neblig’s feelings by refusing his offer.
Most of the boys were accompanied by their fathers, but my father claimed he was too busy with his business. I most wanted Greta to attend, to impress her with my manliness in the ring. Yet we both knew that her attendance might expose our relationship.
And of course I was also partially relieved that she couldn’t go because of my very real fear that she would see me get pummeled.
I would have one very important person cheering me on. My uncle Jakob was thrilled when he heard about the fight and promised he would be there. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss this for anything, buckaroo,” he said. “In fact I’m going to bring some of my friends, so you’ll have a whole cheering section.”
Dozens of young fighters gathered at the Schutz Youth Center on the west side, which was housed in a decaying white brick building stained with black soot. The building had a large outdoor courtyard in the center where a ring surrounded by portable bleachers had been erected for the tournament. The whole place probably held no more than five hundred people, but to my eye it looked like a football stadium packed with hostile fans.
Groups of boys from various clubs gathered among one another dressed in their clubs’ uniforms, including several Hitler Youth groups, who wore swastikas on their boxing trunks and warm-up jackets. At least a hundred uniformed Hitler Youth members sat in the bleachers, cheering for various clubs, along with many grown men in Nazi uniforms, who were the fathers of some of the fighters. The presence of the Nazi regalia didn’t disturb me as much as my own lack of any sort of official uniform or gear. I wore a plain white T-shirt and blue trunks. I even became self-conscious of Neblig’s moldy old boxing gloves, which in comparison to the other boys’ gloves seemed like oversize antiques, something a circus clown would wear.
I scanned the crowd to find Uncle Jakob and his “cheering section” but didn’t see him, though I did find Neblig waiting for me at the registration desk. He waved me over.
“How d-d-d-do you f-f-f-feel?” he asked as I approached.
“Like I’m going to puke.”
“G-g-g-good. That’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel.”
He turned to the registration desk, where an older boy checked in the fighters.
“Yes?” the boy said.
“He’s K-k-k-karl S-s-s-s-stern,” Neblig said, nodding toward me. “The B-b-b-b-berlin Boxing Club.”
“K-k-k-karl?” the boy echoed mockingly. “I don’t see anyone named K-k-k-karl down here.”
“It’s Karl,” I corrected.
“Ah, yes. There it is. You’re fighting at ten thirty against Wilhelm Strasser,” he said, and made a crisp check mark beside my name.
Neblig and I went up to the bleachers to watch the other fights while we waited for my turn in the ring. Steel gray clouds hung low in the sky. I silently prayed for a downpour that would postpone my fight, but for the moment the weather held. The day was structured as an elimination tournament. I tried to figure out who in the crowd might be Wilhelm Strasser, and each face I landed on looked more confident and menacing than the next. I also kept waiting for Uncle Jakob to arrive. I had told him the fights started at nine-thirty, but he still hadn’t arrived by the time I was called down to the ring at ten twenty-five.
The boy
who had checked us in waited by the ring with his clipboard. A large boy with curly blond hair and a thick flat nose, who I assumed was Wilhelm Strasser, waited beside him. He stood beside his coach and another boy from his club. Both wore Hitler Youth insignias on their shorts. While we waited for the preceding fight to end, Strasser looked me up and down with smug confidence. I could feel his eyes measuring my too-thin limbs, my moldy old gloves, my plain shorts and T-shirt. Worst of all, when his gaze met mine, he saw the terrified look in my eyes. My stomach lurched, and I turned back to the ring, pretending to take an interest in the other fight.
Suddenly Worjyk appeared at my side carrying a brand-new pair of brown leather boxing gloves under his arm.
“There you are,” he said, thrusting the gloves toward me. “I can’t have you representing my club with those ratty old mitts.”
“These are for me?”
“Consider it payment for all the sparring rounds you’ve given my fighters. Here, Neblig, help him get these on.”
Strasser and his friend snickered as they watched Neblig help me change gloves.
“Look, baby’s getting a diaper change,” Strasser said. The others laughed.
“Does the retard wipe your ass too?” the other joked. Strasser snickered.
“Just remember,” Worjyk said, ignoring them, “if he’s going down, he’s going down. You don’t have to hurt him too badly like you did last time if the fight is already won.”
“Right,” I managed to stammer.
“If you see his nose bone sticking out of the skin again, tell the ref.” Worjyk continued. “You don’t want to risk causing brain damage. This guy already looks brain damaged enough.”
Strasser scoffed and looked away, as if he knew Worjyk was just trying to make him nervous. Still, after that, he didn’t look at me again until we were in the ring.
Neblig’s gloves had been fourteen ounces, the type most commonly used for training. The new gloves were ten ounces and felt light on my hands. Neblig finished tying them on just as the bell rang, ending the other fight. I looked up at the clouds, hoping for divine intervention that would halt everything and allow me to walk away with dignity. But nothing happened.
The next thing I knew, I was standing face-to-face with Strasser in the middle of the ring. The ref ran through the rules, but I didn’t hear a thing. My head throbbed with the noise of the crowd; each voice and clap was a tribal prelude to my certain death. The bell rang, we touched gloves, and my fighting career officially commenced.
Almost as soon as the bell clanged, my mind went completely blank. All the basics instantly escaped me, like a helium balloon that a child accidentally lets go. Poof—it was all gone into the ether. Strasser advanced toward me, and I couldn’t even assume my stance. My arms just hung at my sides, and my legs didn’t budge. Strasser landed a light punch on my left upper arm, and I almost fell over. Laughter rose up from the crowd. He punched me again, and I tumbled backward, all the way back to the ropes.
Worjyk screamed from the corner, “Get your goddamn hands up!”
I tried to lift my hands, but Strasser came at me with a quick combination of punches that landed on my stomach and chest. Then he hit me in the jaw with a quick uppercut that sent my head snapping back, and I fell against the ropes. Loud jeers rang out as the audience smelled blood. I heard shouts of “Put him away” and “Knock out this skinny clown” and “Kill the bum!” I managed to get my hands up and spent the rest of the round blocking punches, ducking, and retreating.
Finally the bell rang again, bringing a chorus of boos aimed at me.
I found my way to the corner, where Workyk and Neblig waited.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” Worjyk barked at me. “You’re twice the fighter that kid is.”
I was so winded and dazed, I could barely speak. My stomach churned, and I felt the bile rising in my throat.
“I . . . don’t know,” I said. “I can’t remember anything.”
Then my stomach lurched, and I grabbed the spit bucket and vomited, a violent heave that made my head shake and throat rasp.
“Mein Gott,” Worjyk said to Neblig. “He’s falling apart.”
I coughed and heaved more vomit into the bucket.
“M-m-m-maybe we should throw in the towel,” Neblig said.
“No,” I said, regaining my composure. “I feel better now.”
Vomiting had released some of the tension and cleared my head.
“J-j-j-just find your balance,” Neblig said. “K-k-k-keep your hands up and find your balance. This guy c-c-c-can’t hurt you. Are you in pain?”
I thought about it. Despite being hit many times and not landing any punches of my own, I barely felt any pain at all.
“No,” I said.
“He’s got no punching power,” Worjyk said. “You’ve stood in the ring with guys ten times stronger than this bum.”
“F-f-f-find your breath and find your balance,” Neblig said.
Neblig gave me a quick sip of water that I spat back into the bucket. Then the bell rang, and they pushed me back toward the center of the ring. This time I focused all my mental energy on finding my balance. I heard Max’s voice in my head, and suddenly my stance came back to me, and I felt my feet fall into the right place, setting the foundation of my building. Strasser came out punching, hoping to put me away quickly, but I absorbed the first few blows easily and this time was conscious of how softly he punched compared with the men I sparred with at the club.
My body started to move with a natural rhythm as I ducked and maneuvered away from his attack. More boos and catcalls rose up from the crowd. “Come on! Let’s see a fight.” Finally I saw an opening and attacked with a series of jabs that sent Strasser backward. I could feel the shift in his body as I moved forward. He instantly switched to a defensive posture. My eyes met his, and I saw what he had seen in mine before the fight: fear. I knew he was a fighter who was afraid to get hurt.
Then it happened. I landed a perfectly placed punch to his chest. Max had instructed me to aim for the solar plexus. “People think you get knockouts with lots of head punches. But the solar plexus is the best target. If you can hurt someone there, you’ll take away his breath, and the fight will be in your control.” That’s exactly what happened with Strasser. As soon as the punch landed, I heard him take in a sharp breath, and his body posture crumbled. His hands fell, and I instantly landed more punches, trying to pound away at the same spot. In my new gloves, my hands felt like tight little hammers. Another hard jab landed on the bull’s-eye on his chest, stealing more of his breath and bending him over. His building was collapsing in front of me.
All it took was one right uppercut to the jaw and he fell to the mat. The crowd let out a gasp as Strasser struggled to get onto all fours. I heard him wheezing, desperately trying to catch his breath, as the ref started the count. Strasser stayed on his hands and knees, trying to breathe, and I heard the ref finish the count, “. . . sieben . . . acht . . . neun . . . zehn!”
A surprised cheer rose up from the crowd, and Neblig and Worjyk rushed into the ring and lifted my right arm above my head in victory.
At that moment a loud clap of thunder drowned out the crowd, and the clouds finally burst, as if slit open with a razor blade. Thick sheets of rain poured down, causing the crowd to instantly scatter. Neblig and Worjyk ran for cover, and I was alone in the ring. I let the rain fall on me, cooling my heated body, and looked around the empty ring with a deep feeling of satisfaction.
I had won my first fight.
Concentration
NEBLIG, WORJYK, AND I WAITED UNDER COVER FOR TWO hours, but the rain didn’t stop, and the fights never resumed that day. Most people on the street huddled under umbrellas or half-folded newspapers, rushing to get out of the storm, but I ran with my head up, the cool drops running off my hair and down my face. I sprinted all the way home, anxious to tell Greta, Hildy, my parents, someone of my triumph. My feet slapped the slick gray sidewalks with a steady sat
isfying rhythm; and I smugly gazed at all those ordinary people afraid to get a little wet. I was a warrior, impervious to everything. I burst into our apartment, soaking wet and feeling like a conquering hero, but only Hildy was there to greet me.
“Did you win?” she asked, greeting me at the door.
“A second-round knockout.”
“Wunderbar!” she squealed. “Wait here. I made you something.”
She ran back to her room and retrieved a drawing she had made, depicting Spatz, the bird, my alter ego in her storybook world, wearing boxing gloves on his wings with the words knock ’em out, spatz! painted along the top.
“Tada!” she said, handing me the drawing.
“Thanks, Winzig.”
“Will you hang it in your room?”
I didn’t want to hang the babyish picture on my wall next to my other boxing photos, but I also didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“Of course, Winzig.”
I had hoped to bump into Greta on the way into the building, so she could run into my arms, like I imagined Anny Ondra did after Max came home with a victory. I had also been looking forward to telling my father and having him be impressed with me about something for a change.
“Where’s Uncle Jakob?” Hildy asked. “I thought he was going to come home with you after the fight.”
In all the excitement of the fight, I had forgotten all about Uncle Jakob and his cheering section.
“He never showed up,” I said. “Where’s Mama?”
“I don’t know. She got a phone call that made her very upset, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was about. Then she went to find Papa and told me to wait here for you.”
“Who was the phone call from?”
“Mama wouldn’t say.”
Hildy and I spent the rest of the day waiting for our mother or father to return. Hours passed. Hildy perched at our front window, looking out at the rainy street and hoping that they’d come around the corner. At seven p.m. I made dinner by frying some bratwurst in a cast-iron pan and scrounging up some leftover potato salad with green onions and sharp vinegar. We both ate silently at the table. Papa often worked odd hours and missed meals, but it wasn’t like our mother to leave us for so long with no word.
The Berlin Boxing Club Page 11
